Village boy Impressions

What a fine thing it is to travel by bus, to see through the window, a country in passing. Even if all you see is a vast, unbroken land, burnt black by bushfires . It is strangely delightful or perhaps delightfully depressing, to see trees, stunted by the fires, rushing past. But the bus slows. A police barrier. An officer walks to the driver’s window. Money changes hands. He smiles and waves us on. A private driver refuses to pay. He is directed to park at the roadside. Here is a sprawling town. Business is booming—or so it seems. Everyone is busy, sweating in the noon sun. And the filth threatens to swallow them. Whoever invented polythene bags and “pure water” must be smiling. What a beautiful eyesore we have made of our villages. I only cry for the villages, as for the towns and cities, From where I am coming to where I am going Plastic waste has taken over our neighbourhoods, threatens our homes, our lives and our sanity! Everything comes wrapped in a black plastic bag Even a s...

On my small porch, a dove has made her quiet claim– two pale promises nesting in the shallow grammar of fragile twigs. The door had been closed for months before me. No footsteps, no sudden sounds. No reason for fear. She had found what we all look for– a place undisturbed long enough to believe in tomorrow. Now I arrive with sudden sounds and movement and ownership, opening doors like declarations–thoughtless. She startles at my clatter, rises like a thought interrupted, her heart a fluttering question I cannot answer. What does she say of me, I wonder, in the courts where all creatures are heard? Does she call me intruder? Does she name me destroyer? Does she plead, Keep my children from this man who comes with noise and presence? And I– I who mean no harm, I, who have only inherited this roof for a while– stand here, a giant in her fragile world, yet a stranger to her fear. I want to answer her, If I could. Stay, I would say. I have no quar...